John Pilger writes about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. The full text of his speech at Chicago's Socialism 2007 Conference on June 16 2007.

The Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University in New York brought together John Pilger, Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk and Charles Glass for a discussion entitled “Breaking the Silence: War, Lies and Empire” on 14 April 2006. This is a transcript of John Pilger’s address.

Thirty years ago, on 30 April, 1975, John Pilger witnessed the last day of the longest war this century, in Vietnam. It was a day of chaos and black farce, of sorrow and liberation. In this 28-page extract from his 1986 book Heroes, Pilger describes the expulsion of an invader as he saw it in Saigon.

Year Zero An 80-page excerpt from John Pilger's latest book, TELL ME NO LIES, Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs

Top British reporter John Pilger has collected a series of the best pieces of investigative journalism from around the world in the past 60 years in his new 628-page book, TELL ME NO LIES. In our excerpt, we reproduce Pilgers introduction and YEAR ZERO, his remarkable expose of the genocide of Pol Pots regime against the people of Cambodia and the complicity of the British and US governments. Other contributors include Martha Gelhorn, Seymour Hersh, Paul Foot, Greg Palast, Robert Fisk, Eric Schlosser and Edward W. Said.

If you wonder why the Iraqi people didnt welcome the American forces as liberators at the end of the second Gulf war, it may be enlightening to read this excerpt from John Pilgers book, The New Rulers Of The World, written and published before war began. Pilger describes the terrible suffering of the people of Iraq under the Wests  specifically the United States and Britain  decade-long embargo of that country, vicious sanctions that saw hundreds of thousands of children die because of lack of medical treatment as the richest country in the Middle East was brought to its knees because of supposed  but still undiscovered  weapons of mass destruction. In the first part of this excerpt, Pilger reports from Iraq on the murderous effects of these sanctions on the most vulnerable section of Iraq society; in the second, he travels to the United States, where he has an enlightening interview with Madelaine Albrights Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin. Pilger concludes, A prosecutor [at the International Criminal Court] might ask who has killed the most innocent people in Iraq: Saddam Hussein, or British and American policy-makers? The answer may well put the murderous tyrant in second place.

Don't miss this new essay from John Pilger on the Betrayal of Afghanistan, written to accompany his superb new TV documentary, 'Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the war on terror', broadcast in Britain on September 22, 2003.